Not sure if this is the best place, but... will the racial changes in MMM be optional on DDB (similar to the Tasha's changes), or will they retroactively affect all existing races? For me that's a "brake or make" change, as I really don't like the new "let's strip characteristic differences from races" way, and I will not incorporate the MMM changes into my games - but if D&D Beyond enforces those on me, I won't be able to use the site anymore, and I will end my subscription, sadly. (It's not a threat; it's simply reasonable not to pay for something that I won't or can't use.)

They'll be seperate from the current racial rules. I can't find the source at the moment, but this was eventually revealed to be the case.

They haven't explained how they'll implement the changes, however, they have said that they'll be treated as new content and not errata. As such, if you don't buy MotM, you will not have the new statblocks and so forth. Just don't buy MotM and you'll be safe, so long as they keep their word.

As mentioned, they have not mentioned exactly how they'll implement the changes. I don't see how they could do it, but I guess that there is a tiny chance that if you do buy MotM, it'll overwrite your previous statblocks etc. I daresay that there'll be a toggle switch, an overall version choice or multiple monster choice (eg there'll be two different Aaracokra races to choose from), though.

Just don't buy MotM, at least not until after it's released and settled, and you shouldn't have anything to worry about.

I'm just "worried" that Wizards might eventually roll out these changes retroactively, as they did with the Artificer class changes with Tasha's, or the retroactive changes for the races originally introduced in Volo's (both of them being good changes, actually, but that's besides the point). Or how the official Rising of the Last War retroactively changed all the races from the Wayfarer's Guide to Eberron - and I much prefer the original Warforged presented there than the new bland "one size fits all" version - but I had to go and homebrew it for myself as the original version has been fully removed from DDB.

Quote from Edem >>

I'm just "worried" that Wizards might eventually roll out these changes retroactively, as they did with the Artificer class changes with Tasha's, or the retroactive changes for the races originally introduced in Volo's (both of them being good changes, actually, but that's besides the point). Or how the official Rising of the Last War retroactively changed all the races from the Wayfarer's Guide to Eberron - and I much prefer the original Warforged presented there than the new bland "one size fits all" version - but I had to go and homebrew it for myself as the original version has been fully removed from DDB.

 
It has already been stated in dev updates and other threads by site staff that no content previously purchased is going to be changed or overwritten.

The MMM content will be separate.

Quote from Edem >>

I'm just "worried" that Wizards might eventually roll out these changes retroactively, as they did with the Artificer class changes with Tasha's, or the retroactive changes for the races originally introduced in Volo's (both of them being good changes, actually, but that's besides the point). Or how the official Rising of the Last War retroactively changed all the races from the Wayfarer's Guide to Eberron - and I much prefer the original Warforged presented there than the new bland "one size fits all" version - but I had to go and homebrew it for myself as the original version has been fully removed from DDB.

 I'll be blunt. That's the risk you took when you bought digital content on DDB. It will always be the risk with hosted content (as opposed to PDFs which are in your possession and cannot feasibly be altered by them other than offering an updated version). They can change it whenever they want.

Rest assured, they've said that they won't do it for those who won't purchase it, and implied they won't for those who will. That's as strong a promise as you'll get. Now, it's down to you to either trust them to not go back on their word in May or some other future date...or not. That's a you thing, and nothing we, DDB or WotC can say will change that. I'm not saying you're right or wrong to trust them or to not trust them, just that what can be said has been said. It's a company, and companies change with time. 

It's just part and parcel of buying into hosted content. The company has your money and they get to call the shots. That doesn't meant they won't honour what they've said or to suggest that they're anything other than great people, but you should be aware of the nature of the relationship.

Quote from Linklite >>

 I'll be blunt. That's the risk you took when you bought digital content on DDB. It will always be the risk with hosted content (as opposed to PDFs which are in your possession and cannot feasibly be altered by them other than offering an updated version). They can change it whenever they want.

 

 Yeah, I am aware of that, and that's why I would prefer someone from DDB staff to explicitly answer the original question, so I would know whether I should start looking for an alternative site or can I still use what I have how I prefer. Theorycrafting is good, but in theory their mobile app is usable by everyone, not just those who doesn't get a literal headache and eye pain from the dark theme they are forcing on everyone... and I just don't have the time and energy to watch through every video they put on to gather crumbs of information and try to interpret it.

Here is a transcript of what Joe Starr said on the dev update (starting here) pertaining to MotM

But I have a feeling right now that the Call of the Netherdeep is not the book you are staring at on this road map, that you want to gnash your teeth and yell at me about, on our pre-order list, because Monster of the Multiverse also on our pre-order on our marketplace. Here's what I'll tell you about Monster of the Multiverse; one, it's a book that's meant to open up D&D lore a little bit so that you can use anything that you want in your homebrew world or even in the books that Wizards puts out. It you wanna use something from Eberron at Strixhaven, you know, this is a book that's going to be for you, it's also gonna be a really cool resource for newer players, like a one stop shop for a ton of monsters, a ton of player races. The big question that people have for us specifically around Monsters of the Multiverse is "Will this replace my previously purchased content?" It will not. This will absolutely not replace your previously purchased at D&D Beyond. We are currently working through with Wizard on the approach, you know, the nuts and bolts approach for making that work. Wizards of the Coast has asked us that they would like to take the lead on message around this book, we're allowing them that, but we did wanna make sure that you all understood that your stuff is not gonna get replaced, you're not gonna lose anything when this book is released. So, wanted to put that rumour, that concern, to bed. Lots more details to come on Monster of the Muliverse, but that's a big one we really wanted to get across in the mean time. That's enough about books, let's get into features.....

It you wanna use something from Eberron

Except for, like, Kalashtar or Warforged, which are reportedly missing from MMM... :D

Thanks for the transcript. It does suggest that you can keep the original way, if they get their way, but it also says that the negotiations with Wizards are not fully done yet. We'll see.

"M3 won't overwrite your older content" has been decided.  That will be the way DDB handles this, fundamentally.

How that happens?  The specific mechanics of it, and how Wizards answers all the crusty grognards demanding that WotC abandon this new design methodology in favor of Return to 1e?  Nobody knows yet.  That has yet to be decided.

Particulars, still up in the air.  Promise to people who hate the new book?  Made.

Kalashtar and warforged are not considered "setting agnostic" 'races'.  M3 reprints character species that are expected to exist in some form in any setting.  Shifters, being useful as a stand-in for White Wolf game players wanting their fur in D&D, apparently qualify.  So do changelings, despite the fact that DMs detest changelings and ban them even from Eberron games.  Kalashtar and warforged, however, have stories very specific to the Eberron setting and are not really translatable without ground-up do-overs that would ruin them for actual Eberron games.  Thus why they do not appear in M3.

Quote from Yurei1453 >>

Kalashtar and warforged are not considered "setting agnostic" 'races'.  M3 reprints character species that are expected to exist in some form in any setting.  Shifters, being useful as a stand-in for White Wolf game players wanting their fur in D&D, apparently qualify.  So do changelings, despite the fact that DMs detest changelings and ban them even from Eberron games.  Kalashtar and warforged, however, have stories very specific to the Eberron setting and are not really translatable without ground-up do-overs that would ruin them for actual Eberron games.  Thus why they do not appear in M3.

 I understand why Wizards wouldn't include Kalashtar and Warforged, but first of all they made Artificers (who has as much ties to Eberron as Warforged) setting agnostic (especially since Tasha's); and Changelings and Shifters (who are also quite tied in Eberron) are also setting agnostic. That aside, the very statement that with this book you can use things from Eberron or Strixhaven, while two of the four Eberron races and the only Strixhaven race (Owlkin) are actually not in the book, is quite questionable, since nothing else from those books are present in MMM either...

It should be noted that artificers have existed outside of Eberron for some time (certainly pre-fifth edition), including the Faerun Lantan Empire for one example, so making them setting agnostic makes sense.

Shifters make good, balanced stand-ins for PCs with lycanthropy who don't want to surrender their character to the DM nor want a hideously imbalanced character. In fact, the Eberron lore connects Shifters to lycanthropes. Basically they go from "I'm descended from lycanthropes" to "I'm a lycanthrope"

As for changelings, they're a good stand in for doppleganger PC options, which are a setting agnostic monster.

Ultimately WotC seems to be bringing over as much stuff that can integrate into a non-setting specific game as possible, assuming a minimal level of reflavouring. The options that didn't see any migration seem to be:

• Owlin - This is an MtG specific race (ie created for Magic the Gathering)
• Loxodon - Again, created for Magic the Gathering
• Warforged - Deeply embedded in Eberron lore
• Kalashtar - Again, deeply embedded in Eberron lore

And it's important to remember that Joe's comment about "It you wanna use something from Eberron at Strixhaven, you know, this is a book that's going to be for you," was meant to highlight the general philosophy of the book. He wasn't speaking to the specific content within MotM. Let's not try and read into subtext that isn't there.

Joe was citing settings mostly at random as an off-the-cuff example of what the book's intent was.  He could've said "want to use stuff from Exandria in Theros?" and gotten the same point across.  

Kalashtar simply don't make sense outside of Eberron.  Some people like to use them as a template for "Guy With Psychic Powers", but frankly that's mostly just proof of how thoroughly Wizards has dun ****ed up psychic/psionic abilities in 5e.  The whole quori bond thing though, the entire basis for their existence?  Nonexistent outside of Eberron.  Warforged are similar - the idea of an entirely synthetic person, as alive as anybody else but made in a factory from originally nonliving components, doesn't really work outside of a magic-as-science setting like Eberron.  People do it all the time anyways, but each DM has to find some way of handwaving the dissonance, and usually it's "you're the only warforged in existence, the unique creation of a single brilliant mind".  When it's not "the Mourning blew you across space and time and now you're the only warforged in Greyhawk, trying to figure out how to not get stabbed to death by pitchfork-wielding murder mobs."

Neither issue really applies to shifters i.e. 'Lycanthrope Lite', thus answering the fourth most proposed race homebrew of all time i.e. "HOW DO I WEREWOLF IN D&D!?!?!?!?!?!?!", and turning changelings into annoying fey miscreants ties into existing IRL fey lore (even if it massively ****s over actuial-Eberron changelings and destroys the lore of the critters in that setting - but hey, Eberron is used to the rest of D&D telling it its lore sucks so eh), so sure.  But you can't really do setting-agnostic kalashtar - or rather, you shouldn't - and warforged are super divisive.  People either love them or they absolutely hate them, with many DMs on the side of "do I look like I'm running a Battlestartrek Galactus game?  No?  Git yer robot man bullshit outta my fantasy RPG, you ass-mopping inflatable weasel!"

So yeah.  Take Joe's example as a one-off example, not gospel, and remember that Wizards is recycling content in a way it fondly perceives will lower DM blood pressure.  That stance will explain a lot.

What weirdly arbitrary decisions

Something being "deeply embedded in the lore" of one world should have no impact whatsoever on whether it's made setting agnostic... particularly something with as basic a concept as "robot PC", which I guess is somehow completely different from "doppelganger PC" or "were-PC"

Quote from AntonSirius >>

What weirdly arbitrary decisions

Something being "deeply embedded in the lore" of one world should have no impact whatsoever on whether it's made setting agnostic... particularly something with as basic a concept as "robot PC", which I guess is somehow completely different from "doppelganger PC" or "were-PC"

 By 'deeply embedded in the lore', I mean that what makes the monster fit into the world is tied very heavily to the world in question. To put a warforged into any other setting, you'd generally have to construct a significant amount of lore, and the same would be largely true of kalashtar. However, for shifter and changeling, the lore that ties them to the average setting already exists; werewolves and dopplegangers are already setting agnostic. It's a distinction that WotC has drawn that doesn't seem that novel and idea.

Sure, except you can't do kalashtar outside of Eberron.  Their Quori language doesn't exist, because quori don't exist.  You'd have to alter their stat block so heavily they wouldn't really be kalashtar anymore, which would destroy the species in Eberron.  You'd be better off just making a new psionically-active species than trying to cram kalashtar into a non-Eberron game.

And sure, I suppose you could reprint warforged as "generic construct guy".  Their name doesn't make any sense in that case though, and again, you have all the DMs out there who'd hiss and spit and boycott the book (all the other DMs anyways, outside the ones already doing it) because it'd be Wizards trying to foist off all the gol-durned robit folk onto their right-and-proper fantasy worlds.

Or, alternative hot take: warforged aren't in M3 because they're already planned for inclusion in the 2024 PHB, given the popularity with non-Grampappy players.  M3 is for the odds-and-sods species unlikely to ever be updated to the new standards outside of a book specifically made for it like M3.  Just like there's no PHB species in M3, there's no warforged in it - because come 2024, warforged (doubtlessly named something else and with all that unseemly Eberron crap stripped out of them) will be a PHB option.

Quote from Linklite >>

I don't see how they could do it, but I guess that there is a tiny chance that if you do buy MotM, it'll overwrite your previous statblocks etc.

Never mind could, I don't see why they would. DDB is obligated by the licence to faithfully reproduce the contents of the books on the site, and with M³ categorically not being errata the contents of Volo's and Mordenkainen's remain unchanged - hence, their DDB versions should also remain unchanged. It'll become entirely clear in May though, when people who own the two originals will buy M³ regardless (almost certainly myself for one). 

Quote from Yurei1453 >>

the fourth most proposed race homebrew of all time i.e. "HOW DO I WEREWOLF IN D&D!?!?!?!?!?!?!"

As an aside, it's not like the Monster Manual doesn't already show how to do this canonically. :p Probably not in a way that's to everyone's liking, but it's all there. 

Quote from AntonSirius >>

What weirdly arbitrary decisions

Somebody drew a line somewhere. That's all (where the line is drawn may seem arbitrary, but by that logic any decision is arbitrary - I don't think that's what that term is meant for). It's a line though, it's not like they made individual decisions for each race separately.  Even though Warforged without the Eberron setting stuff are pretty much just golems or animated suits of armour that could be explained in any of dozens of ways (Alphonse from Full Metal Alchemist, or even simply Reborn, etc) they do have that setting stuff explicitly in their writeup. So do Kalashtar. Shifters on the other hand don't. That's where the line was drawn. Is a significant amount of their writeup in the book tied to setting? Then they don't go in M³. Somebody decided on a parameter, and that decision was followed consistently.  

Quote from Davyd >>

To put a warforged into any other setting, you'd generally have to construct a significant amount of lore

Any setting with artificers already has all the lore you should need to add warforged, really

Quote from AntonSirius >>

Quote from Davyd >>

To put a warforged into any other setting, you'd generally have to construct a significant amount of lore

 

Any setting with artificers already has all the lore you should need to add warforged, really

I think what Davyd refered to was more about putting warforged as a race into another setting than about a single individual. For a single one you don't need any official lore, because one uniquely weird oddity (or up to a handful on the outside) showing up somewhere can be explained any way you want ("a wizard did it" remaining a perennial favourite). If something exists as a race however, background lore is required. Even "talented artificers commonly built them to serve as bodyguards and manservants until their creations outgrew them" or something is meaningful lore that implies a lot beyond what is said in less than twenty words there.